


One Can, Two Cans, Three Cans, Four

by dyrimthespeaker



Category: The Haunting of Hill House (TV 2018)
Genre: Family Dynamics, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Sibling Bonding, Underage Drinking, Underage Substance Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-14 02:14:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16904142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dyrimthespeaker/pseuds/dyrimthespeaker
Summary: It’s the summer of 2002 and Luke’s carefully not thinking about the impending anniversary of his mother’s death.





	One Can, Two Cans, Three Cans, Four

**Author's Note:**

> I live to yell about Luke. I’m also inept at linking on here. Find me on tumblr at biamosburton if tumblr continues to exist. If not I’ll be here, writing fic, yelling about Luke.
> 
> Thanks as always to Shreya for encouragement, support, and listening to me ramble about fic ideas at all hours.

He’s sixteen and he’s gotten good at slipping money out of Aunt Janet’s purse unnoticed. It’s one of his main talents. Others include being quiet, lying by omission, outright lying, having inopportune panic attacks, avoiding eye contact, downing a beer in one go, and having such bad coordination that he manages to smack his arm into a doorframe a couple times a month. 

At least his eyesight’s improved, he’s outgrown the coke bottle glasses of his childhood. The doctors had been right about that, that if he wore them all the time, his eyes could be trained to a point of not needing them anymore. So he’s got that to be grateful for, though it’s come along with a growth spurt that leaves him tall, gangly, and uncoordinated instead of anything even approaching handsome or built. Not that he wants to be some muscle bound jock, but he’d like to stop feeling like he’s got one of those floppy balloon tube guys they set up outside car dealerships for a body.

But, if nothing else, he can steal small sums of cash with no one the wiser.

The first times were easy. Five dollars and he could get two tallboys, down one on the way home, stash the other for later. It’s hard to miss five dollars, easy to think you’ve misplaced it. For a while that was enough, but he gets used to it. Needs more to feel the same buzz. It takes a bit more money, but he’s good at taking a little at a time. He’s also careful not to get drunk much, just buzzed.

It’s cheap beer so it’s easy to maintain just a low level buzz. He only buys cheap beer, the point isn’t the taste. It’s how much can he get.

Two tallboys doesn’t cut it after a while. Plus it’s a hassle to have to make a run to the seedy little mart that doesn’t card as often as he runs through them. He looks young, is young, but he’s tall and his money spends the same as anyone else’s. Well. Aunt Janet’s money. The owner doesn’t give a shit either way. They sell 24 pack cases for fifteen bucks and those last him longer, make more economic sense too. It takes him a little while to figure out how to smuggle a whole case home unnoticed before he remembers he’s a high school student. He has a backpack. It’s the perfect size and if it looks a little boxy, well, so do textbooks. No one asks and no one checks.

It’s summer so the backpack is a little out of place, but he’s pretty sure he’s timed it so he can get in the house with no one noticing. And even if they do, the fact that he’s carrying his own backpack isn’t exactly a smoking gun. Luckily everyone’s out when he gets back so it’s not an issue anyway.

He hides the case in Nellie’s room. Not out of trying to pin it on her. It’s just that he spends more time in there than he does his own. Plus her closet has a false back in the lower half of the wall that hides a little cubby  _ just  _ big enough for him to shove a 24 pack in. He fits it in and slides the panel back into place. He’s itching to crack one open, but he makes himself wait. Later, later. He’s half tempted to see if he can manage sneaking a cigarette without being caught, just for something to take the edge off his nerves, but the smoke clings to him and rats him out.

Smoking is a newer habit given he can’t really sneak it that easily. He’s got a half gone pack shoved under a bunch of notebooks in his desk, but he only takes them out when he’s going to be gone a while. Long enough to get the smoke off him, or at least be able to claim he only smells because he was at a friends place and their parents smoke.

Another recent development is weed. But that’s even rarer than cigarettes. Not only does it reek, but there’s no “my friends parents were smoking it” excuse to be had. He’s also not quite sure about it. Most of the times he’s smoked it mellows him out better than even beer and cigarettes together. But a couple times it was like it latched onto every bit of anxiety and paranoia in him and ratcheted it up to a thousand.

His friends who smoke regularly say if he did it more often he wouldn’t have as much of a risk of the paranoid highs. He believes it, but, back to the hiding it problem, can’t test it out to know for sure.

Cheap beer and occasional cigarettes suit him just fine for now anyway, while he’s still under Aunt Janet’s roof.

He kicks off his sneakers and takes his usual spot sitting on the floor by Nellie’s bed. She has an abundance of pillows and a couple of them are always on the floor so he can lean against the side of her bed comfortably. He grabs one of the notebooks he left there and flips it open. Page after page of drawings and poems and short stories fly by. Finally, he gets to a blank page and pulls out a pen to start doodling.

It’s nothing in particular, black ink from a ballpoint pen and no idea in mind. He just makes shapes on a whim and sees where they go. Most of his notebooks are like that. Kind of aimless, just for himself. For all that he’s constantly got a pen in hand, he doesn’t like to share his work. The days of pinning his drawings to the fridge with magnets are long gone.

He doesn’t use much color either. Almost all black ink. It’s not that he has anything against color, but most of it looks too saturated for his purposes, almost garish. The notebooks don’t need that kind of flash. Not that black isn’t saturated, but it has a soothing neutral quality. It isn’t bright, it isn’t loud. It’s not like he’s making anything to share anyway so it doesn’t really matter if everything he does is a monochrome mess.

Every once in a while, when the mood strikes him, he borrows from Nellie’s extensive collection of gel pens. She’s got it all. Pastel, neon, glitter. A whole rainbow of colors stacked in multiple cases, those cheap plastic ones with the little trays fitted for each pen. Separated into each case by type, and organized just so inside. It’s not rainbow order, it’s some other order Nellie came up with herself. He doesn’t ask, just accepts that that’s how the pens go and is always careful to return them to their proper place.

She likes to write notes in multiple colors and embellish them with little squiggles and stars. It suits her. He keeps the ones she’s written to him in his desk. Different drawer than the cigarettes. None of them are anything of consequence, random stuff like something she needs from the grocery store, reminders to check out a band she’s just gotten into. Stuff like that. But he keeps them just the same.

He’s trying to zone out and focus on drawing or writing, but he’s antsy. The lines and shapes on the page even messier than usual, refusing to form anything coherent. He can’t seem to spark even the simplest idea for a coherent sentence either. He’s anxious. He needs something to take the edge off.

He sighs and gets to his knees, shuffling the short distance to Nellie’s boombox. It’s a prized possession. She had saved up for it for months and now it sits at a place of pride on her dresser. It’s not kept in the pristine fresh out of the box condition a lot of people keep their cherished belongings in, not to say that she abuses it. She takes good care of it. But it’s also covered in stickers. Set atop an old silk scarf she found at a local thrift shop. Her bedside lamp has another silk scarf over it. She’d seen someone do it in a movie and decided she had to too.

Theo said it made her room look like an old timey brothel, but Nellie said she liked the ambiance. Theo’d made an off color joke about the ambiance of turn of the century hookers and it had devolved until someone said the word “cock” as Shirley walked in and the look on her face was enough to shut everyone up. At least, until they all broke into a fit of giggles while Shirley wore her patented long suffering eldest sister expression and chided them for all being children.

He reaches up and turns it on, pressing play. He doesn’t bother to check what’s in it. Whatever CD she was last listening to suits him just fine. It’s going to be something she likes, but not her current favorite. Her favorite of the moment was sure to have its place in her walkman. The volume’s low enough so after he presses play, he shuffles back to his pillow pile and picks up the notebook and pen again, hoping the music will be enough of a distraction to soothe his nerves until Nellie gets home.

He makes it three tracks before everything’s too much and he’s back in Nellie’s closet pushing the panel open and grabbing a can.

Just one. He’ll have one and then when Nellie gets home, later on, he’ll have a few more.

He remembers the first time she ever tried beer. Her nose wrinkled at that first sip from his can. She swallowed and shuddered a little, thrusting it back at him. He laughed at her expression and drank the rest down, fast and easy.

She doesn’t drink to get drunk, not like him. She doesn’t drink much at all. But when she does it’s about the taste. She likes sweet, fruity. He grabs her a wine cooler sometimes from the mart. Just one, she only ever drinks one. Always picks the brightest fruitiest one he sees. Bold saturated colors, with pictures of fruit on the label in flavors like strawberry daiquiri or piña colada.

He got her one today. Fuzzy navel. She likes peaches, he thinks she’ll like it.

He cracks open his can and downs half in one go. Holds it up then, weighing, considering. Well, not much difference between one and two. Not with the cheap beers he gets. He downs the rest and grabs another can, then slides the closet panel back in place. Two beers, then Nellie gets home, then a few more later.

The second one he sips. Not savoring the taste. There isn’t much to savor. But he’s trying to pace himself. The can tucks under Nellie’s bed safe and sound and the angle of his body hides it. He gets comfortable on his pillows and lets the music wash over him. Doodles a little, writes a few aimless poems, waits for Nellie’s return.

She comes in soon after he’s finished his second beer. He’s also on his second loop of the CD in her boombox, but he’s relaxed enough that he’s stopped paying attention to the tracklist. Her hair’s up in braids today and she’s got a ring pop in her mouth. She smiles at him around it and goes over to the boombox. She pauses it and switches CDs, nods to herself, then takes her shoes off and climbs up on her bed.

He hears the faint  _ pop  _ of her taking the ring pop out of her mouth and looks up. She’s got it on her finger, carefully held up so nothing gets on it. It’s stained her lips hot pink.

“Whatcha working on?”

He shrugs. “Nothing.”

She hums and accepts his answer. He’s pretty private about his notebooks, but he shares them with her sometimes. When he really likes something he’s done or wants her opinion.

Nothing he’s done today is worth sharing.

“Went to the mart today.”

She raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t speak. She knows he’s been having a hard time lately and she doesn’t judge. She’s been having a hard time too.

“Got you something. Fuzzy navel. It’s orange as fuck.”

She smiles. “Thanks.” She doesn’t drink much, but she’s feeling the need to take the edge off too. They all are in their own ways. It’s summer. It’s 2002. None of them want to think about what that means, but in a week their dad is going to visit. There’s even talk of packing them all up and going to Massachusetts. 

To visit.

To see.

He doesn’t want to think about it.

“You think we can get away with skipping out on eating dinner with everyone tonight?”

“Maybe. If not I’ll just say you feel sick and bring you up a plate later.”

He smiles in relief. “Thanks.” He really doesn’t feel like dealing with everyone tonight. There’s going to be enough of that when Dad comes. All he wants is to stay here in Nellie’s room with her and drink until he feels alright.

Until he forgets what happens in a week.

Summer 2002.  _ That _ day looming like a dark cloud on the horizon. Like it always does. But this year, this is especially significant. Ten year anniversary. Ten whole years since.

Since.

“Anyone else home yet?”

She shakes her head, ring pop back in her mouth.

With that, he’s headed back to her closet again, reaching in for another beer. Nellie’s home and it’s later. That means he can have another now. He pulls the can out and hesitates. “You want yours too?”

“Nah, not yet. Later.”

He takes his beer and gets settled on his pillow pile again. Doesn’t down it like the first, but drinks it faster than the second. He’s started thinking too much again. Stuff he doesn’t want to think about too close to the surface, anxiety buzzing under his skin.

She watches him and after a little while asks, “Is that your first today?”

He shakes his head. Feels a little ashamed, wishes he could’ve held out and waited like he’d tried to.

She doesn’t say anything, she just nods. But there’s no judgmental weight in her eyes, she accepts him.

They pass the time like that, mostly in silence, with the white noise backdrop of Nellie’s boombox. They speak occasionally, Nellie leads most of their conversation, Luke happy to follow and chime in on whatever she wants to talk about. They don’t talk about anything of consequence. They especially don’t talk about what’s happening in a week.

The third beer is gone by the time there’s a knock on the door. Someone come to fetch them for dinner most likely. Nellie sits up, ready to go out and speak for both of them and see if she can manage to get them both out of it. But the door swings open and reveals Aunt Janet. If it had been anyone else or if she’d just yelled up to them, then he’d have had Nellie say he was feeling sick. But Aunt Janet’s standing there looking at him and he knows if he says that she’s going to come over and fuss. Try to feel his forehead and look him over and the risk that she’ll smell the beer on his breath or see it in his eyes that he’s a couple in is just too great. He’s got a decent enough buzz going to get through one dinner he thinks. He doesn’t want to, but it’s better than getting caught.

So he and Nellie go down and join everyone at the table. He keeps his head down and eats fast. Hums noncommittally when necessary, but lets everyone else dominate the conversation. It’s normal enough behavior for him that no one questions it, no one thinks twice.

He’s able to escape the table with no one the wiser. He suspects that everyone’s a bit distracted anyway, caught up in their own heads right now. He and Nellie wash their dishes and retreat to her room. They should be left alone for the rest of the night. It’s what he’s banking on.

They resume their earlier activities. Together, but mostly quiet. Nellie reads and Luke draws. Neither of them have much to say, but that’s okay. They don’t have to fill the silence. They’re comfortable enough just existing together, there’s no weird tension over the quiet. It’s not like how some people get nervous and awkward sharing silence. They can talk, or not. It doesn’t matter. They’re together. They’re home.

Though they should be left alone for the rest of the night, he waits until the sun sets. It’s late, darkness doesn’t come until much later in the summer. But he waits. It’s then that Nellie gets up and switches the music again and he pulls supplies from her closet. One fuzzy navel wine cooler for Nellie, three cans of beer for him. He twists the cap off hers before he hands it to her, she doesn’t even look before taking the first sip, she knows he’s taken care of it.

“Thoughts?”

She hums and considers. “Good. Not as good as strawberry daiquiri, better than mojito.”

He files that information away, he’ll pick her up a strawberry daiquiri one in a day or so when he goes to re-up on beer. He’s anticipating it being a heavy drinking week. At least until Dad comes and he has to sober up and ready himself to be under scrutiny. Not that Dad would notice, but they’re all going to be spending more time together once he’s arrived which means more chances of getting caught if he goes through it drinking like he wants to.

“Do you really think we’re all gonna go to Massachusetts?”

And now he’s broken his unspoken vow of silence on it. He doesn’t want to think about it, but he wants Nellie’s opinion. Wants to know if she thinks they’re really going to go through with that part of the plan.

“Maybe.”

“Like it’s not enough Dad’s coming and we have to play happy family.” Not that that ever lasts long. Not with their family. They can barely make it one day with them all together before a fight breaks out.

Nellie doesn’t say anything to that. She wasn’t as hard on Dad as the rest of them. She didn’t speak in his defense, but she also didn’t join in on railing on him. Steve was captain of the Dad Is An Asshole And Here’s Why team. Luke didn’t disagree with Steve, though he thought his brother got a little… much with it at times. He didn’t hate his dad, but he had his issues with him.

Steve’s sure to have plenty to say this year. Ten year anniversary is significant. Dad visiting, as always. If they all actually go to Massachusetts to visit the grave. A new thought strikes him. They’d have to get a hotel if they do that. What will the room arrangements be for that? God he hopes he and Nellie can have a room to themselves and everyone else can keep to theirselves.

“I wouldn’t mind going,” Nellie says.

Luke doesn’t usually disagree with her, but everything about this trip sounds like a bad idea. “I dunno…”

“I wouldn’t mind seeing Mom’s grave again.”

And there it is. Nellie saying words he’s too scared to. She’s always been braver than him. He can barely stand to  _ think  _ the words, much less say them.

“It’s not really that, though,” he says, “If it was just that it’d be okay I guess. But if we go we’ve gotta travel together. Stay in a hotel with Steve and Aunt Janet and Dad all together. No Dad going to his hotel at night, we’d be stuck together.”

She’s frowning, thinking about what he’s saying. “Yeah. I wish it was just about Mom.”

He gives her a look then. When has it  _ ever  _ just been about Mom? Sure, it’s about Mom. Everything’s about Mom. But it’s also about Dad. It’s about custody. It’s about secrets and anger and sadness and guilt and betrayal. It’s about Steve and his opinions. It’s about Shirley and hers. It’s about the barely disguised animosity between Aunt Janet and Dad. It’s about Theo saying shit that starts shit, yet removing herself from the middle of the conflict. It’s about Nellie trying so hard to hold them together, but breaking down. It’s about him, overwhelmed and useless. It’s about everything spoken and unspoken. It’s about the house. It’s everything all at once.

For something that’s about their dead mother it always gets trapped under layers and layers of accompanying baggage and bad blood.

Ten years.

Ten years since his mom killed herself.

It’s strange. He’s been alive without his mom longer than he was alive with her. And most of that time he had with her he was so little he can’t even remember it. He remembers feelings more than any distinct memories. He’s got more vague ones than clear specific ones. He also knows some of his memories aren’t really his, they’re just things he’s been told so often that it’s like he remembers them.

He wonders if he’d remember her face if photographs didn’t exist. He’s seen it enough that he knows what she looked like. But would he remember if they didn’t have them? Would he remember her voice without home movies?

He finishes his beer and opens another can.

Whatever happens, happens. It’s only a week away. They’ll find out soon enough.

Nellie’s halfway done with her wine cooler by the time he’s opening his last beer. They lapsed into silence again after naming that dark cloud hanging over them. He doesn’t want to talk about it anymore, doesn’t want to think about it, and she knows this. She knows him.

It doesn’t take long to finish the last can. Goes down the smoothest by far. He’s sprawled out on the pillows at this point, his head leaned back against the side of Nellie’s bed. He’s well past just buzzed, but that’s alright. It’s late, no one’s going to find out.

He feels Nellie’s fingers brush through his hair and tips his head back further. Makes a soft sound of contentment.

“You gonna make it to your room?”

He makes a noncommittal noise, doesn’t bother trying to verbalize. He’s tired and he’s drunk and he knows Nellie understands anyway.

Her hand withdraws and he mourns the loss, but then it reappears on his shoulder. “C’mon,” she says, “Get up here.”

She scoots over to give him room and he drags himself up into Nellie’s bed, the world gone fuzzy. Or maybe that’s just him. He curls up beside her and closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to move. He wants things to remain like this, just as they are. He can’t feel the anxiety under the blanket of alcohol. All he can feel is the softness of the pillow under his head, the safety of Nellie by his side. His limbs feel loose and he thinks if he tried to get up he really would flop around like one of those inflatable noodle guys. He grins to himself at the thought.

“Luke?”

“Mmmhh?” The sound is long and drawn out, he doesn’t open his eyes.

Some amount of time passes, though he’s not sure how much. Then he feels Nellie press a kiss to the top of his head. “Sleep well.”

He makes a vague noise in response. Wants to wish her the same, but he’s already falling asleep. He knows she understands.

Everything plaguing him feels so far away. All the sadness and the anxiety. The memories, the worries. The anniversary. The house. Mom. All of those ever present things that haunt him, that leave him crying or panicking or scared. They’re so far away. Barely even encroaching on him, barely a whisper in his mind. They can’t get him. Not tonight.

Tonight he’s safe with Nellie. Safe with the beer. Blanketed in layers of substance and love and understanding. Here, drunk in Nellie’s bed, nothing can touch him.

Sleep comes, soft and easy. The last thing he notices before it takes him is Nellie curling closer to him, laying her head on his shoulder and tucking her body up next to his. He hopes she sleeps easy too. That her wine cooler gives her that same peace of mind that the beer gave him. That his presence is the same soothing balm to her as hers is to him.

That she’s safe.

The next week will come, it’s inevitable. It can’t be stopped. Time goes on and on, years passing. But he’ll have her. Whatever happens, Massachusetts or not, they’ll be together. Ten year anniversary. Ten years since.

Since.

With his twin at his side and a case of cheap beer in the closet, he’ll get through this too.


End file.
